It handles nearly 670,000 non-ER outpatient clinic visits, over 99,000 emergency visits[1] and some 26,000 inpatients each year. More than 80 percent of Bellevue’s patients come from the city’s medically underserved populations. Today[when?], the hospital occupies a 25-story patient care facility with an ICU, digital radiology communication and an outpatient facility. The hospital has an attending physician staff of 1,800 and an in-house staff of about 5,500.

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Bellevue was founded in 1736, at a time when New York City did not extend much farther north than Wall Street. It was established in what was then wilderness, almost 2 miles north of the settled region of Manhattan, in order to quarantine the sick. When the grid system of streets was established much later in 1811, the survey had to take Bellevue into account, and the placement of First Avenue on the grid is mainly due to the location of Bellevue. New York City purchased the Belle Vue farm and built the New York Almshouse that same year. In 1819, New York University faculty began to conduct clinical instruction at Bellevue Hospital. In 1849, an amphitheatre for clinical teaching and surgery opened. In 1861, the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, the first medical college in New York with connections to a hospital, was founded.

By 1873, the nation's first nursing school based on Florence Nightingale's principles opened at Bellevue, followed by the nation's first children's clinic in 1874 and the nation's first emergency pavilion in 1876; a pavilion for the insane—an approach considered revolutionary at the time—was erected within hospital grounds in 1879. Bellevue initiated a residency training program in 1883; it is still the model for surgical training worldwide. The Carnegie Laboratory, the nation's first pathology and bacteriology laboratory, was founded there a year later, followed by the nation's first men's nursing school in 1888. By 1892, Bellevue established a dedicated unit for alcoholics.

Bellevue opened the nation's first ambulatory cardiac clinic in 1911, followed by the Western Hemisphere's first ward for metabolic disorders in 1917. New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner began on the second floor in 1918. German spy and saboteur Fritz Joubert Duquesne famously escaped the hospital prison ward in 1919 after having feigned paralysis for nearly two years.[4]

PS 106, the first public school for the emotionally disturbed children located in a public hospital, opened at Bellevue in 1935. In 1939, David Margolis began work on nine Work Projects Administration murals in entrance rotunda titled Materials of Relaxation, which were completed in 1941. Bellevue became the site of the world's first hospital catastrophe unit the same year; the world's first cardiopulmonary laboratory was established at Bellevue by Andre Cournand and Dickinson Richards a year later, and the nation's first heart failure clinic opened, staffed by Eugene Braunwald, in 1952. In 1960. New York City's Office of the chief Medical Examiner moved out of the second floor and into its new building at 520 First Avenue, but still maintained close relations with Bellevue. In 1962, Bellevue established the first intensive care unit in a municipal hospital, and in 1964, Bellevue was designated as the stand-by hospital for treatment of visiting presidents, foreign dignitaries, injured members of the City’s uniformed services, and United Nations diplomats. Bellevue joined the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation as one of 11 acute care hospitals in 1970.

In 1981, Bellevue was certified as an official heart station for cardiac emergencies; a year later it was designated as a micro-surgical reimplantation center for the City of New York, by 1983 as a level one trauma center, and by 1988 as a head and spinal cord injury center. In 1990, it established an accredited residency training program in Emergency Medicine. The building that formerly served as the hospital's psychiatric facility started to be used as a homeless intake center and a men's homeless shelter in 1998. The publication of the Bellevue Literary Review, the first literary magazine to arise from a medical center, commenced in 2001; Bellevue Literary Press was founded six years later as a sister organization of the Bellevue Literary Review.

In April 2010, plans to redevelop the former psychiatric hospital building as a hotel and conference center connected to NYU Langone Medical Center fell through.[5] The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 required evacuation of all patients due to power failure and flooding in the basement generators.[6][7]

Bellevue physicians promoted the "Bone Bill" in 1854, which legalized dissection of cadavers for anatomical studies; two years later they started to also popularize the use of the hypodermic syringe. In 1862, the Austin Flint murmur was named for Austin Flint, prominent Bellevue Hospital cardiologist.

By 1867, Bellevue physicians were instrumental in developing New York City's sanitary code, the first in the world. One of the nation's first outpatient departments connected to a hospital (the "Bureau of Medical and Surgical Relief for the Out of Door Poor") was established at Bellevue that year. In 1868, Bellevue physician Stephen Smith became first commissioner of public health in New York City; he initiated a national campaign for health vaccinations. A year later, Bellevue established the second hospital-based, emergency ambulance service in the United States.[8]

In 1889, Bellevue physicians were the first to report that tuberculosis is a preventable disease; five years later was the successful operation of the abdomen for a pistol shot wound. William Tillett discovered streptokinase, later used for the acute treatment of myocardial infarction, at Bellevue in 1933. Nina Starr Braunwald performed the first mitral valve replacement in 1960 at the hospital. In 1967, Bellevue physicians perform the first cadaver kidney transplant. In 1971, the first active immunization of serumhepatitis B was developed by Bellevue physicians. Bellevue played a key role in the development of the "Triple Drug Cocktail" or HAART, a breakthrough in the treatment of AIDS, in 1996.

On June 26th 2015 the Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon was admitted to the hospital for micro-surgery on his finger after he suffered an accident in his home. Fallon was originally brought to the Beth Israel Hospital's emergency room in New York but was later transferred to Bellevue Hospital when it became clear they could not repair the damage at the Beth Israel Hospital. A specialist in hand micro-surgery named David Chiu was brought in to help repair the damage to Jimmy's finger. The surgeon actually had to use a vein from Fallon's foot to repair his finger. The surgey took nearly six hours to complete. Jimmy came very close to losing his finger. Jimmy Fallon returned to the Tonight Show after brief hiatus on Monday July 13th 2015 and told the audience and viewers at home of what had happened and his appreciation for all the staff at both hospitals.[9][10][11][12]

^Goldstein, Richard (2001-01-23). "Tommie Agee, of Miracle Mets, Dies at 58". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-25. Tommie Agee, the center fielder who made two of the most spectacular catches in World Series history in propelling the Mets to their stunning 1969 championship, died yesterday at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. He was 58. Agee had a heart attack while leaving a Midtown office building in the late morning, according to a hospital spokeswoman, Lorinda Klein. ...